My Love, Where Art Thou?
by I Will Disappear
Summary: Its not til their children are older, one out of school, the other fast approaching graduation, and the last not too far off, that she comes to the conclusion that her husband married her out of grief, needing comfort, that he had never loved her.


A/N: OMG you can totally see how much I really hate Ginny

/ |||| | My Love, Where Art Thou? | |||| \\\

/

It was, at the very end, tragic, like watching a bird die slowly in your hand, knowing full well that there was nothing that could be done to save it, yet too frightened to put it out of its misery.

He watched as before his eyes, another great man died, eyes wide and breath heavy and painful, blood clotting and mucking up his throat, the gaping wound to his neck painted red and black in the dim light.

He stared into his eyes as a last request, and really he couldn't deny the man anything, not now, not when he had finally been able to see through the act that he put up.

And he sat by that man, pale and dying, and he held his hand, even though, Harry was sure, Severus wasn't aware of it, and looked that man in the eyes, because he understood that he was searching, even in his dying moments for forgiveness, and Harry happily supplied it.

And then he was off, the feeling of a limp cold hand clasped around his, of those eyes staring at him till the very end, of the breaths coming slower and heavier and then stopping all together.

And he was running, looking for the one he need slay, and he fought, just like the others, just like Fred, and Denis, like Tonks and Remus, and Severus, those sad memories and the false hopes he had made created a small barrier around himself as he went, spells shot out and deflected, and he moved.

And then it seemed that everything that happened, flashed forward, the late headmaster, and the fetus that was part of Tom, and leaving the field, it was simple, life would move on and he had finished doing his part.

And when expectations were still held, he moved with the flow, married Ginny and had three children, the first named for his father and godfather, the last named after his mother and best friend, but it was his middle child that he cherished, the one he had named himself, without Ginny's interference.

His little Severus, his little pride and joy, his little slice of Slytherin in a house of Gryffindor, and he felt secure with his middle child.

Teddy knew from the beginning and then, Albus Severus himself, then little Lily in her third year and James sometime after, and then it came to light to the whole of the Weasley family, extended and all.

Ginny found out last, and the tears she cried meant little to him and his children, because, for all that they were like their mother sometimes, they were truly their father's children.

Teddy had stood up and been the first to give his belated condolences, even though he had made them many a night when sleep was keep away, then Lily and Albus, and Charlie and bill, then Fleur and Gabriella and George and everyone lined up to pay their late condolences and Ginny sat through the whole thing, eyes wide staring at the pale messy haired man she had married.

And she continued to stare at the green eyed man she had fallen in love with, whose children she had bore, and she wept, because she was only second best and everyone knew it now.

Her children had known from the start, she turned to them as they hung close to their father, and in those moments, she could see herself in her youngest daughter just a small bit, and only with the light, almost none existent freckles along her shoulders.

She could see her stubbornness in her eldest sons eyes, and as she looked on at her middle child, she wished she didn't have to see him, wished he had not been born, he took after his father in looks and, as the years past, took on the height her brothers had been blessed with, but put together with his slight frown and crisp tones, he could have been Snape's son and not her own.

And she turned to look at her husband and he looks content to watch his children, because one looks like his mother, another his father and the middle child resembled a man long dead, and the man he had loved.

He can still remember sitting on the floor and looking into black eyes as the man he loved died slowly and he could do nothing but watch and hold his hand, still remembers placing on last kiss onto cold lips painted red, remembers slipping a ring from cold fingers and placing it on his own, smiling he placed a kiss to the two rings, one his own, the other his first and last love, his wedding band tucked away in his wife's nightstand.

He can still remember those cool dead lips against his own, and he wept.


End file.
